Book Suggestion?

[digipinky75910]

Anybody remember the "Clue" book series back in the 90's? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clue_(book_series)

In case you don't, it was a light-hearted, fun, young adult book series featuring the characters you know from a certain board game as they get together and have wacky adventures and occasionally attempt to kill each other. At the end of each chapter, there a mystery it asks you to solve - sometimes it's a murder, sometimes it's something else, but something if you are sharp enough to catch the clues you can solve on your own.

My mom is getting a bit older and is worried she is getting forgetful and "dumb". Realizing she enjoys word puzzles, I got her some crossword books and she is enjoying them. She also enjoys a good Columbo, all the law shows and medical shows (former nurse.) What I like about "Clue" is that it wasn't always a murder and it was a light-hearted romp. Sometimes reading those sort of practical/mystery/detective stories is it's always murder and after reading a couple it just feels a bit dark.

Does anyone have any good book recommendations for a light-hearted mystery/puzzle type book, or similar light-hearted medical mystery type puzzle-story book? Thank you!

 

[Queen Michael]

I'd recommend the Black Widowers stories by Isaac Asimov. (Yep, the SF guy. Nope, there's nothing science fiction about these stories at all.) I try to read one of them every week, and you usually get twelve per collection. The first book is called Tales of the Black Widowers.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Just have your mom watch Detective Conan or read the manga.


Really.

 

[Agema]

Does anyone have any good book recommendations for a light-hearted mystery/puzzle type book, or similar light-hearted medical mystery type puzzle-story book? Thank you!

Before I start, let me say this sort of thing is really not my type of literature.

That said, possibly the main medical mystery author I know of is Robin Cook, but they're thrillers and I wouldn't like to say light-hearted at all. Michael Crighton also wrote medical mysteries especially in his early career (although became most famous for more general science fiction type stuff later on), but again not generally light hearted.

 

[gorfias]

I like Michael Palmer. They made a movie of his book Extreme Measures.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116259/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_33
Fun, quick read.

 

[Queen Michael]

Just have your mom watch Detective Conan or read the manga.


Really.

Yeah, the manga is good. Finding a good English translation is hard--the official one changes the names, and the scanlations are near-unreadable at times.

 

[SupahEwok]

The Nero Wolfe detective stories of Rex Stout.

They're all murders, but very few of the 50 or so novels ever get to what you would call "dark." They aren't explorations into the dark pits of human nature or anything. They also aren't particularly puzzle-y mysteries, but the writing style is very smart. The narrator's got a sarcastic wit, and the banter between himself, as the down to earth man of action, and his boss, a reclusive and acerbic genius, is some of the most understated funny dialogue I've ever read. Like all good writing, it engages your brain, even if the subject matter isn't anything particularly strenuous, so I find them very good comfort books.

 

[Chewster]

The Archie McNally series was always a fun, flighty series of mystery novels staring an aging playboy working in Palm Beach as a sort of pseudo private eye for some of the more colourful of his father's legal clients. I enjoyed those books a great deal as a teenager as I recall.